The Dream Eaters
by Apocalypse Cow
Summary: Petunia's recurring nightmares are the least of her problems. It's all she can do just to stay sane. (James-Lily, James-?) Marauder-era. (Bit of a dark fic really . . .)


The Dream Eaters  
  
Petunia's recurring nightmares are the least of her problems. It's all she can do just to stay sane. (James/Lily, James/?) Marauder-era.  
  
Warnings: none really - some Lily-bashing, but this is Petunia talking. It comes with the territory.  
  
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I was always in love with him, you know, though he never knew it. That Potter boy. I was all right with that, really, fine with my station in life, happy being just his friend. My life, for those short three years, was the best it's ever been.  
  
And then you came along.  
  
You always were the special one, the brilliant one, the prodigy, and you had received all of our parents' love. That alone crippled me, until I got the letter - then I could spend my time away from you, from them. I was different at last, and I was special. I struggled in my classes (which, for a Muggle-born, was only to be expected), but that was all right, because at last I had something you didn't. My magic.  
  
I had this recurring nightmare starting second year where I was stuck in a troll's cavern and my wand had been taken from me. Potter lay behind me, injured, surrounded by the protective (though equally helpless) circle of his friends. I was all that stood between the troll and them, and I was willing to make any sacrifice just to help. The troll's club swung at me, and I was about to die when a blinding light burst from a corner of the cave. When it finally cleared, the troll was gone and you were standing there with that familiar, disdainful look upon your face.  
  
"Why do I always have to save you, Petty?" you said, condescendingly.  
  
I asked you what you were doing there and what spell it was that you had performed, and you just laughed. "You mean you don't know? Come on, silly, magic is easy."  
  
"But you can't do it!"  
  
You shrugged. "What, you thought you were special or something? Don't worry; you can still have this as your little plaything. I have more important things to attend to-"  
  
But I didn't hear most of what you said as I lunged at you, and you screamed as I killed you with my bare hands. In the end, though, I was the one who woke up screaming.  
  
The first time it happened, I woke up the whole damned house, including Potter, who rushed over to my dormitory to see if I was all right. For a little while, I entertained the notion that he actually cared. The same thing happened the next night, and the next, and the next, until Madame Pomfrey prescribed me nothing short of twelve different sleeping potions to make the dreams go away.  
  
Of course, none of them worked all that well.  
  
Potter teased me about it fairly often, but I didn't mind, as that was just his way. Every Christmas after that he gave me a dream-catcher in a different shade of blue, which I guess he thought was funny. He made a point of giving them to me on my birthday, too - I was just glad that he was getting me something.  
  
And then, something dreadful happened. Along with that creature, Skroth, that the Potter boy dreamed up to run errands for him, another owl I didn't know arrived at our house.  
  
It was two days after my birthday, which was yours, of course. Your birthday always eclipsed mine completely. When it came to my birthday, everyone just . . . forgot. I was always made to help with your birthday preparations on mine, because everyone just figured that I wasn't having a party. After all, who would want to attend a party in honor of plain, bland, boring Petty? At that point, I couldn't even remember the last time that I'd received a serious, non-dream-catcher birthday present. I considered myself lucky if Dad shoved a wad of money into my hands and told me to go get some ice cream.  
  
We were pretty hard-up for money, though, so I never really blamed them.  
  
At any rate, Skroth and the owl both decided to crash your party, my dear sister, dumping their packages into the middle of the cake, where they promptly caught fire. Mother screamed and poured water on them while Dad told me off, as if their arrival was my fault. Your friends were a bit scared, and you, of course, were in tears. You weren't accustomed to even the littlest things going wrong.  
  
When I opened Potter's present, the little purple dream-catcher was soaked and knotted, and I could barely read the enclosed card. I supposed that it was just the usual - happy birthday, hope you're remembering to take your medicine (since you don't want to wake the whole neighborhood, etc. I caught a rather unusual phrase in the middle of it, though – "The Dream Eater". The rest of it was entirely impossible to read, soaked as it was. It was fairly inconsequential, at any rate.  
  
It was the other letter, addressed to you, which spelled my doom.  
  
Mother and Dad were overjoyed, of course, and it all degenerated into one big love-fest with them constantly squealing about how proud they were of you, how great it was to have a witch in the family. I stood alone in the corner, trying to salvage the remains of the cake and crying. I've never had to hide my emotions, really - everyone's always too busy with you to notice my tears anyway. Once again, I lay discarded in the corner, a broken toy ten years out of style.  
  
That's my lot in life, you see.  
  
Of course the prodigy child had to be good at everything. You excelled where I had to work off my arse (and then some) just to pass, and everyone loved you. You, of course, loved the Potter boy. I'm not sure if you ever really loved him as much as the idea of him or the fact that I wanted him so badly it hurt. You never played well with other children.  
  
He noticed you right away, of course, as everyone did, but he didn't give half a damn about you. He didn't even like you, and that was amazing. There was nobody in the world who didn't like you - so you set out to make him notice you, make him yours.  
  
You pretended you weren't my sister, and everyone believed you. After all, we are nothing alike.  
  
Potter gave me another funny purple dream-catcher that Christmas. "It's a Dream Eater," he said. "Second edition, since that other one doesn't seem to have worked. I made it myself. It's guaranteed to devour your nightmares! And, well, in the case that it doesn't, I've got a third edition in the works . . ."  
  
It was a very good thing that I was already sitting, because when he smiles at me like that, my knees just give way.  
  
You were determined to make him notice you, and you certainly did just that. You wouldn't believe the commotion that yur skipping up to my grade - the first skip in about two hundred years - caused. Potter definitely noticed it, although it gave him nothing good to say. I remember that one time, you threw a hissy fit when he gave Valentine's chocolate to every girl in our year except for you, so he gave you something he told you was better - a whole bushel of first-class Augurey feather quills.  
  
You'd think that a genius would know that Augurey quills repel ink.  
  
You smoked me in every class, left me gasping in the dust. Do you know how much that hurt? No matter how hard I tried, no matter what I did, my shiftless little sister always beat me, in every class. When he wasn't raving about his darling Dream Eaters, you had the Potter boy's undivided attention as he ranted on and on about what a smarmy bitch you were.  
  
I started getting a Dream Eater for every single holiday, including Saint Patrick's Day, but my nightmares just kept getting worse and worse. Nothing Potter or Pomfrey did for me worked - the best I could do was to set silencing wards around my bed at night so that I didn't wake the whole tower. It was as if I was cursed.  
  
At home it was as if I was a shadow - our parents never even noticed me, as busy as they were fawning over you. And you - you, my dear sister - relished every second of it.  
  
The summer after fifth year, Mother took me aside. "I'm sure you know about our . . . financial problems, darling." I nodded. It was the longest I'd ever held her attention in years. She sighed, looking relieved. "Well, then, I'm sure you will understand our decision to take you out of Hogwarts school. We just can't afford both of your tuitions anymore, and, well, you're not that good at it, are you, Petty? Your sister has a real talent. It would be horrible to put it to waste - I mean, honestly . . . I don't want to hurt your feelings, but-"  
  
I nodded and smiled. "I understand."  
  
After all my many years spent with you, it would be hard not to.  
  
I worked myself to the limit, trying to catch myself up to my proper grade in Muggle school, and nobody really cared, myself least of all. I was almost dead, you see, by that point in time. My nightmares were worse than ever before, and I eventually ran out of sleeping potions. I woke the street every night with my screams.  
  
The Potter boy kept sending me letters and Dream Eaters, none of which helped very much at all. He wrote almost daily, though I never replied, and I loved him for it. I couldn't help but love him more with each passing day, though that was the last thing in the world that I wanted to do.  
  
It was you that told me of your engagement at the end of seventh year, not him. You didn't even invite me to the wedding, although he did, and I sat at the back and silently cried. Your smiles were both convincing fakes, and I started to think that perhaps you didn't really want him after all. I left before the reception, and nobody tried to come after me. I'm just Petty, after all.  
  
So when the former star of Stonewall's football team asked me out, I went, because I had nowhere else to be. I had no real skills, and no college would take me, and it beat sitting at home. I wasn't surprised when he didn't kiss me goodnight, but I was surprised when he hugged me instead and gave me a dazzling smile. It wasn't like the Potter boy's, but it was nice enough, despite his few missing teeth. He asked me out the next night, and the next, and eventually I just didn't come home.  
  
I married him quietly, with just a few witnesses present, because he might not be Potter, but I felt safe in his arms.  
  
Potter wrote to me just one more time after your marriage, almost a year later. He hung around our parents' house with you a bit, and I always ran from him, though he didn't seem to notice. When a guy's got you, why would he notice me?  
  
At any rate, Skroth came in the middle of the night, waking Vernon and I loudly, and tried to give me an enormous package. Do you know what I did then, darling? I locked Skroth in the closet under the stairs until he shriveled up and died.  
  
I had to shovel out the corpse when it started rotting a few weeks later, of course. There was some rotten food and a Dream Eater in with it, the biggest, gnarliest Dream Eater I've ever seen. The food had been my favorite dish, which he'd saved from your wedding all that time, and I had no qualms in throwing it out.  
  
That Dream Eater, though, was different. He said he poured his whole being into it, which I could clearly see. It works utterly unlike the other ones, and allows my sleep, for the first time in so many years, to be free of you. For once in my life, sleep has become a sweet oblivion.  
  
So don't give me that look, Lily. You came here asking for my help to save both your lives, and I'm not stupid. I know that if I do what you ask, then he'll just come here and kill us instead. You'd like that, wouldn't you? After all, that's the best way to seal the Fidelius Charm permanently.  
  
I know I'm cold, but I don't care. You can just go and shove your stupid charms up your arse.  
  
You're the one that made me this way.  
  
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A/N: Finally, my second HP fic is up! I surprised myself - it's not really slash this time. Thanks a million to everyone who has reviewed 'Farther to Fall' thus far:  
  
La Lauren, lala(), I love you both.  
  
"fangirl", I love you too. Bad grammar and ridiculous guesses make me laugh!  
  
Oh, and the third couple Dumbledore was referring to in said story was Dumbledore/Grindelwald. What can I say? I'm strange.  
  
Feedback makes the world go 'round! 


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